The following guest post is written by Joleen Krupa who is a writer for Radiation Therapy Schools, a resource for students interested in becoming a radiation therapist.

Gene therapy is a new treatment for various forms of cancer. The process involves manipulating a person’s genes in a variety of ways that help to either kill cancerous cells or promote the growth of healthy ones. Over the past year, doctors have used gene therapy to treat several cases of adult leukemia. Leukemia is cancer of the bone marrow and blood. It causes an increase of white blood cells that causes the person to be very susceptible to ailments such as pneumonia. The use of gene therapy in this form of cancer has had very positive results.

Patients Cured Using Gene Therapy

Doctors used gene therapy in three patients who were diagnosed with leukemia. They performed the gene therapy by constructing cells that would hunt down and destroy the cancerous cells. The three men who were treated with gene therapy suffered from terminal cases of lymphocytic leukemia. This particular form of leukemia progresses very quickly and affects the person very rapidly with symptoms such as infections, bleeding and fatigue. The average percentage of death for a person with this kind of cancer is approximately 10 percent. About one out of 50,000 patients die from this disease every year.

The only hope for curing leukemia before doctors attempted gene therapy procedures was bone marrow transplants and stem cell transplants. These procedures were not effective all the time. Additionally, both procedures carry a high risk of death if the receiver’s system did not agree with the donated parts.

All three men who were treated with gene therapy showed some level of progress. Two of the men had complete remissions of the disease for a period of at least one year after the treatment. One of the men still had some cancer, but he had still showed a great deal of improvement. The success of these three cases has prompted scientists to try gene therapy in other forms of cancer. The process used to treat the cancers will depend on the progression of the illness and the course of action that carries the less risk. For example, a younger patient may be able to handle being injected with a virus that would seek out and destroy cancerous cells. Another patient may respond better to something that puts healthy cells back into the body. Specialists may also add other methods of treatment as well.

Risks

The only risks seen in the patients who received gene therapy treatment for leukemia has been loss of other cells. The substance the doctors used to kill the cancerous cells also wiped out some of the patients’ infection-fighting cells, making it easier for them to pick up infections. The three patients are still being treated on a monthly basis for the loss of the infection-fighting cells. Doctors are very optimistic about this new method of treating illness. They are waiting to record long-term results. So far, the achievements have been phenomenal. Hopefully the patients will stay in remission for many years to come and there will be hope for future patients.